We in NB IT have been told by many outsiders that we have some of the smartest, hardest working, insightful and innovative talent they have seen anywhere. We are too humble and modest and we lack the sales and marketing focus and investment that others use to get in the door at the party. Once we are in we are the life of the party but getting in (including in our own neighbourhood) is a big challenge. I can charge double + hourly rates for advisory work outside Atlantic (and buyers don’t even blink) than I do inside (and there’s always the “well the CEO doesn’t even make that” kind of questions. We need to play bigger, be more confident, and stick our foot in the door more (because we have the chops for sure).
Good issue for discussion David and I agree with your comments and those of Glen Hicks. I think there are two distinct issues of bias: one for goods and one for services. Re: services like consulting I believe the bias for expertise from away (over 100 miles as the joke goes) is rooted in the belief that services from away have a wider geographic base of experience that they bring to work done here in NB ie they may bring in new ideas that a local firm may not have because their work is focused on local/regional work. With respect to goods like food/groceries the problem is access. I have seen the big player (Loblaws and Sobeys) do major in store promotion of “local” products on their shelves despite local being 0.0001 % of their total offering. This is designed to portray these companies as supporting the loacal community/farmers and thus being good corporate citizens. At best this is window dressing and at worse it is a distraction from the corporate concentration that the Feds/ Competition board allowed which has lead to very profitable chains controlling prices (they were caught fixing bread prices) and local access to shelf space. When over 80% of our food is purchased at these “one stop” chain megastores people are not going to drive all over town to buy local - a waste of valuable time and gas. Under these conditions local food producers are always going to struggle because of the rigid supply chain structure not because of difficulty in being competitive in quality or price.
Possibly but the data is based on company surveys where they are supposed to tell CRA the distribution of revenue by province. So, technically, if an Ontario firm buys an NB firm the NB activity should still be showing up as NB activity but there are always issues with data reporting.
I don’t have the data but I would assume that statement to be true. Which brings up another challenge in tech which is selling off unicorns, rather than growing long standing technology export companies. We need a good balance of both it’s an and, not an or.
We in NB IT have been told by many outsiders that we have some of the smartest, hardest working, insightful and innovative talent they have seen anywhere. We are too humble and modest and we lack the sales and marketing focus and investment that others use to get in the door at the party. Once we are in we are the life of the party but getting in (including in our own neighbourhood) is a big challenge. I can charge double + hourly rates for advisory work outside Atlantic (and buyers don’t even blink) than I do inside (and there’s always the “well the CEO doesn’t even make that” kind of questions. We need to play bigger, be more confident, and stick our foot in the door more (because we have the chops for sure).
Good issue for discussion David and I agree with your comments and those of Glen Hicks. I think there are two distinct issues of bias: one for goods and one for services. Re: services like consulting I believe the bias for expertise from away (over 100 miles as the joke goes) is rooted in the belief that services from away have a wider geographic base of experience that they bring to work done here in NB ie they may bring in new ideas that a local firm may not have because their work is focused on local/regional work. With respect to goods like food/groceries the problem is access. I have seen the big player (Loblaws and Sobeys) do major in store promotion of “local” products on their shelves despite local being 0.0001 % of their total offering. This is designed to portray these companies as supporting the loacal community/farmers and thus being good corporate citizens. At best this is window dressing and at worse it is a distraction from the corporate concentration that the Feds/ Competition board allowed which has lead to very profitable chains controlling prices (they were caught fixing bread prices) and local access to shelf space. When over 80% of our food is purchased at these “one stop” chain megastores people are not going to drive all over town to buy local - a waste of valuable time and gas. Under these conditions local food producers are always going to struggle because of the rigid supply chain structure not because of difficulty in being competitive in quality or price.
Always appreciate your thoughtful comments, Frank.
Could some of the increase in share of market be attributed to acquisition of local IT firms with contracts assigned to the Ontario or Québec entity?
Possibly but the data is based on company surveys where they are supposed to tell CRA the distribution of revenue by province. So, technically, if an Ontario firm buys an NB firm the NB activity should still be showing up as NB activity but there are always issues with data reporting.
I don’t have the data but I would assume that statement to be true. Which brings up another challenge in tech which is selling off unicorns, rather than growing long standing technology export companies. We need a good balance of both it’s an and, not an or.
Correct. National and international investment is an important part of a healthy IT industry (greenfield or through M&A).